Who Put WHO In Charge Of Anything?

Gizmodo has a bizarre article up suggesting the World Health Organization (WHO) is about to change the definition of “infertility” such that it now includes single people. (Link to my twitter in case you don’t feel like giving Gizmodo clicks but want to see the headline.)

Apparently WHO is not a fan of Gizmodo’s characterization of whatever the hell they’re doing (since I can’t figure out what it actually is.)

Frankly though Gizmodo’s characterization of whatever WHO is thinking would fit with WHO’s consistent insane politics. Let’s go all the way back to the beginning here and look at WHO’s definition of health that has persisted more or less in this fashion since the 1940s. Being “healthy” is:

a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Oh, well then, total well-being, that’s not an entirely unobtainable definition that doesn’t understand the human condition at all. Concerned about your job prospects in today’s economy (mental): NOT HEALTHY. Not able to get that new car and keep up with the Joneses (social): NOT HEALTHY. Want a kid, but can’t (or won’t) find someone of the opposite gender willing to procreate with you (social): NOT HEALTHY.

WHO has been applying this definition for decades now, constantly pushing for the expansion of a leviathan state designed to control the mental and social facets of people’s lives from cradle to grave seeking some perfectible human condition. Beyond this their insistence on “mental and social well-being,” without anything even resembling a limiting principle, leads to a mangling of “desires” and “needs” in their system, rendering beyond useless in first world countries especially.* This whole “infertility is what we want it to be” mess is just another piece of straw covering a long dead camel. But maybe we’re finally approaching a point whereby we’ll realize just how insane public health has become. So let’s go back to that Gizmodo article…

Under the American Disabilities Act, a person with a disability is defined as someone with “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.” Because the ADA does not name all of the impairments that are covered, the new WHO guidelines could apply, or even be unnecessary. After all, having children is a major life activity for many people. [Emphasis Added]

Then again, maybe not, maybe we’ll just continue down the rabbit hole of crazy.

*For swaths of 3rd world countries this definition at least makes more sense. After all if you live in an area plagued by wars or without even access to the basics of water and shelter it’s nearly impossible to be healthy.